Blog Exercises: September Random Editing Day

It is September and the number is now up to 9 posts to edit on our monthly Random Editing Day exercises.

Each month in the Blog Exercises series, I challenge you to edit random published posts on your blog, adding one for every month of the year. This month is nine posts. You can do it.

Over the past nine months of blogging exercises and random editing exercises, I’ve been thinking about ways to inspire you to find different content across your site to edit. Facing nine posts to edit today, a day in September when many people are returning to school or helping their children return, I thought I’d offer you the option to randomly edit web pages with jargon.

We all use jargon when we write about a subject. Since this is the start of the school year for many, learning the jargon and terminology is critical to education. If you can’t name it, it’s hard to talk about it.

As we blog, we begin to assume the audience understands what you are talking about. Of course they know. They wouldn’t read our site if they didn’t know what were were talking about, right?

Thinking I’m talking to “my people,” I casually refer to trackbacks, pings, posts, Pages, podcasts, podios (podcast audio books), blogosphere, vlog, and mblog, all terms I live with daily that you may rarely hear in your world. Unless I stop to educate my readers about what these words are, how can I include them in the conversation?
You use terms daily that I probably have never heard of for your industry.

I was inspired to do this exercise by uncovering an old post I wrote called “Blog Writing: I lk yr blg.” It challenged you to write to be understood by your audience, writing to their level and their terminology. To speak as they speak, using language common to both of you. It also challenged you to check your social media abbreviations at the door. We are judged by our typed words on the web, not our personal appearance, voice, or mannerisms. All we have are the words, so use them wisely and talk to your audience in a way that they can relate and appreciate.

As described in the original exercise, your task today is to find nine random previously published posts and edit them. Use the list in the original exercise as a review on what to look for when editing the article.

Make a list of the words you use in your industry that are not well understood outside of it, the jargon. Search for your usage of these words and edit the posts you find to ensure readers learn the definitions and usages of the terms.

Nine is a big number, but it will be ten next month, and twelve the last month of the year. I know you can do it. Set aside some time, and maybe impose a time limit to accomplish this task. Nine posts in 60 minutes. Or maybe less?

It’s the start of the school season, so consider this your homework. :D

Show us your best edits by adding a hat tip link to the edited post(s) to this post to generate a trackback, or post a link to the two posts in the comments. Include an explanation of why you are proud of your editing skills. If WordPress moderates the comment because of the links, be patient as I’ll be here as soon as possible to approve the comment.

3 Comments

Did you come out with a cd of your first several months of Blog exercises, or did I misunderstand? I hadn’t started my blog, so I haven’t done the excess isles, but I want to once my blog is set up. Thanks. Love following you. Your students must love you.